My Boys
by Adjust the Sails
Summary: Nero wakes one morning to find a note from his mummy. Adlock and Parent!lock one shot. Some feels. *Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.*


**My Boys**

Nero blinks the sleep from his eyes on a dreary London morning. The digital clock on his bedside table reads 7:47 AM. Ever the morning person, he hops out of bed and tip toes past his snoring brother, making his way to the door of the room they share at 221b. He avoids the one creaky floor board with expertise, being someone who has woken adolescent Hamish early far too often to forget the consequences.

He pushes his dark curls out of his young, curious eyes. He knows his father is still asleep, because he spent the majority of last night looking through a microscope and taking notes with Hamish. _But Mummy might be up by now,_ he thinks, padding down the dim hallway to the kitchen.

Peeking his head into the tiled, messy annex, he finds that the chairs at the table are empty. The coffee machine is slumbering, the kettle is silent. Uncle John's sweater is still laid on a chair back from Friday night when he forgot it there. The only thing amiss in the kitchen is an envelope, smack in the middle of Sherlock and Hamish's Petri dishes. It's small and efficient, with black writing on the front. The looping cursive is familiar to Nero, but too complicated for his 3 year old brain to process. Lying next to it is his mother's old phone. He snatches the envelope and runs to his parents' bedroom.

Sherlock is curled up on the left side of the bed, the crisp white sheets tangled around him. Irene's place is empty and cold. For a moment, Nero wonders why the picture of him and his brother that usually resides on his mother's dresser is missing. But it is forgotten in the excitement of the letter.

"Daddy... Daddy!"

Sherlock wakes like a raven-haired dragon, grumbling and moaning about eight o clock in the morning and late night experiments and why can't your mother do it. Nero shakes his arm, whispering, "Daddy, look, look! It's a letter. It was in the kitchen. I don't know where Mummy is. Has she gone to get groceries?"

Sherlock is definitely awake now. His alert eyes scan the thick parchment envelope, searching for clues. He knows this writing like the back of his hand. The letter is addressed to "My boys". He looks up at his youngest son, with his hair falling into Irene's cobalt eyes, staring expectantly. How painful it was to look at those eyes. Refusing to show the sinking feeling in his stomach, Sherlock orders, "Go wake your brother." There's a tone of urgency in his voice usually reserved for cases.

"What's wrong, Daddy?"

"Go, now."

"But Hamish hates getting up early, just like you. What if he won't get up?"

"You're a clever lad, just like your mother. You'll figure something out." He has mere moments to quell the shaking in his hands, the tears in his eyes as he reads the letter. Short, efficient, but full of... No, not fire. Fight. Full of fight and energy. _Typical Irene._ He has just enough time to grasp his phone and text Mycroft, _WHERE_.

No reply.

Nero bounces in on the balls of his feet. Hamish shuffles sleepily behind him, sighing. Sherlock quickly folds the note and stuffs it back into its envelope.

"Dad," his eldest groans, "What's so important? I was up even later reading one of your old quantum physics papers."

"Boys..." Sherlock pauses, struggling for words for what may be the third or fourth time in his life. "Mummy's gone away for a bit."

"What for? She always says goodbye when she goes away on secret business," whines Nero, hurt. _Secret business,_ quips a voice inside Sherlock's head. _Accurate._

"Not this time." Nero puts his face on his father's chest, as his daddy tangles his fingers in the soft corkscrews. _She won't see his tight curls loosen with age,_ whispers the voice. _Shut up. This is no time for sentiment,_ snaps another.

"But she promised to read me a story tonight, and we were all gonna play pirates!" Nero looks so sad and confused. The expression does not belong in the face of so young a child.

Hamish's face is a mask of distant stone. He's learned his father's tricks already.

Sherlock, a firm believer in being honest with children and treating them as equals, takes a deep breath. "Hamish, Nero. Your mother isn't coming back. She's not coming home."


End file.
